


The Feet Question Whither

by dimeliora



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alpha/Omega, M/M, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 01:46:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21949294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimeliora/pseuds/dimeliora
Summary: This is a Christmas gift for Storyspinner70 , who I hope likes it! I put together two of prompts and this is what came out: 3. Super shy Jared and/or awkward Jensen 5. Jared is a strong alpha but wants to be an omega – Jensen’s, specifically. What do they do? Any A/B/O, or human/were.Summary: Jensen is a workaholic do-gooder who finds a shoebox and falls in love.
Relationships: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki
Comments: 9
Kudos: 203
Collections: SPN J2 Xmas Exchange





	The Feet Question Whither

**Author's Note:**

  * For [storyspinner70](https://archiveofourown.org/users/storyspinner70/gifts).



Jensen would be the first to admit that his entire life has been spent chasing ideals. It’s not a shameful thing for him, although some have tried to make it so, but it has been the source of great pain more than once.

In his work life it means long hours at a job that barely pays enough to eat after his monthly student loan payments, in his personal life it means a laundry list of ex-friends that owe him money, and in his love life it means a whole lot of nothing. Hopeless romantic is not quite the right term, but it’s close.

Despite being a very logical person, Jensen has always believed in fate. He’s held out in the hopes that he’ll find just the right omega for him, in some grand way. It helps that he can’t afford the bar scene, and he has no time for blind dates that would go nowhere. His mother claims he’s set his life up this way on purpose, but Jensen knows better.

It’s because he’s true to himself. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

So, he spends his days and nights working at the shelter under the steady guidance of Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and he keeps his heart open to the one that will really make it beat. The first time Jensen meets Jared is on the side of the road. It takes him days to fall in love, but that’s ok. At that point, Jared is only a shoebox after all.

He’s driving to work when he sees the box. It’s an old habit, put into place by his years of working at the shelter. He pulls over and crosses the scrub in between the road to the box. Sometimes they hold nothing, but every now and then he finds discarded animals abandoned by shithead owners. This one looks too small, but Jensen can’t risk it.

The box is too light for an animal to be inside, but it’s also sealed and there’s a sloppy handwritten note on the lid that says, “To Whom it May Concern”. Jensen’s interest is piqued. He takes the box back with him to the car, and heads on to work. They’re doing a community event today for spaying and neutering, and Jensen is going to have a lot to do.

After hours of cutting and caring for animals Jensen is exhausted. He collapses into the chair in Jeff’s office and rubs his forehead before accepting the water bottle that’s being held out his way.

“You did a great job today, Jensen.”

He suppresses the instant thrill that gives him and guzzles the water.

“Thanks, boss.”

“Which is why I think it’s time for you to spread your wings. I’ve put you up for the director position of the Odessa shelter.”

Jensen chokes on his water, and Jeff laughs.

“Why would- Jeff! You need the help here.”

His boss smiles, understanding, and spreads his hands.

“We can rope another do-gooder in here with a new degree and student loans. But Odessa doesn’t have a full vet, and you need to be a leader now. It’s time to get out there and really do something. Come on, Jensen, work with me here.”

“Jeff. I don’t know anything about Odessa, and I don’t know that you can find someone fast enough.”

His boss is still smiling, completely unperturbed by any of Jensen’s logic.

“If you get the job, I’ll get you a visitor’s guide. Now head home, I got a mate to go kiss.”

He heads home, brain whirring with information, and despite the physical exhaustion by the time he comes through his apartment’s front door he knows he won’t be sleeping any time soon. So, he picks up the shoebox and cuts it open carefully before popping the cap off a beer and settling down into his old and beat-up couch.

Jensen isn’t sure what he expects from the shoebox. It could be any number of things. What he certainly doesn’t expect is a diary. For half a second he considers how very like a cheap horror movie this is. Then he picks the diary up and opens it. The handwriting inside matches the sample on the top of the box.

A couple gulps of beer later and Jensen opens the diary to the first page. It contains only four sentences, written in a shaky hand, spread out across the page. He can’t tell if it’s nerves or alcohol that make it look that way.

_My name is Jared. I am an alpha. A big one._

_But not really._

Somehow Jensen has consumed four beers and read twenty pages. Time has apparently flown. In it he’s fully met Jared, an omega trapped in an alpha’s body. He’s learned all about how Jared dreams of finding the right alpha who could take care of him and see what he really needs. He’s read how Jared’s parents don’t understand him, how the community doesn’t understand him, how he feels betrayed by the ones he loves and the body he was born into.

It’s after midnight and Jensen has to get up early. He puts the diary down carefully and drags himself to bed. Sleep doesn’t come easily. He tosses and turns, thinking of little snippets of Jared’s stories and life.

Two days later Jensen has a day off. He’s already gotten the call for the phone interview for Odessa, and that’s a really good sign for his future and a bad one for his blood pressure. He opens another beer and sits down with his takeout, playing with his mail for a few minutes before he gives up and picks the diary back up again. There’s only sixty or so pages left, and Jensen is hesitant to reach the end. But he knows he will.

_The other day I started thinking. What if I’m wrong, and biology is right? Everything I want is out of my reach. I can’t get pregnant, I can’t have heats, I’d need a ton of prep for a knot. Everything scientific and factual is working against me._

_And then I remember that Frost poem. “Ah, when to the heart of man/ Was it ever less than a treason/To go with the drift of things,/To yield with a grace to reason”. And sure, he wasn’t writing about gender, but who do I want to be? Why should I just submit to it? How will I live with myself if I spend the rest of my life lying to me and everyone around me, picking someone I don’t love, knotting them when I don’t want to, trapping them with me?_

_I want to teach. I want to share literature with children. But I want to be me too, and here I can’t do that. I can’t start treatments and hormone therapies to lessen the alpha smell, I can’t introduce myself as an omega, I can’t do anything._

_Is it time to leave?_

Jensen rubs his fingers gently against the crinkles in the paper, dried tears, and wonders what Jared meant by the final line. There are no pages left.

How long ago did Jared leave the box on the side of the road? Did he take off to a new place where he could transition? Did he hurt himself? He sounds so sad in the final pages that it breaks Jensen’s heart, and the tears on the page only highlight how bad things are for him. Were? He’s not sure, but the idea of Jared out there, somewhere, alone and hurting really ups Jensen’s anxiety.

It’s ridiculous. It’s confusing. He calls Jeff, because of course he does.

“ _Jensen? What’s up? You concerned about the interview?”_

“No. I have a question. What would you do if Hillarie was in danger? Or sad?”

There’s a long pause, and then Jeff makes a strangled noise before Jensen hears his boss taking steps and closing a door.

_“Why are you asking me this?”_

“This is gonna sound insane. I found this diary on the side of the road.”

He tells Jeff the entire story. He leaves out Jared’s name, as if there’s some chance that Jeff would know him and out him. Or maybe out of some bizarre possessiveness that Jensen can’t even begin to explain to himself.

“Am I crazy? I can’t stop thinking about him.”

_“Jensen. You idiot. That’s your mate. We gotta find him! Is there a name in it or anything that might be an address or a place you can track him down?”_

…his mate.

This is his mate.

The truth slaps him so suddenly and powerfully that Jensen has to sit down and his hands begin to shake.

“No. Nothing I can track him down with. What do I do?”

Jeff laughs, soft and gentle, and then says the thing Jensen least wants to hear even though up until now it’s been his philosophy.

_“He’s your mate. You’re going to find him. That’s how it works.”_

He’s got the job in Odessa. His car has a few valuables and his clothes, and there a POD headed to his new home with the rest of his belongings.

Jensen is terrified. He tells Jeff no less than twenty times that he’s terrified that he’ll leave and find out later that Jared was still here and is now dead. That he’s met someone else. That someone talked him into betraying himself and he’s mated with some omega and settled down.

What if he comes back to visit Jeff in two months and there’s Jared, adopting a dog with some little thing on his arm and sadness permanently etched into his eyes? He’d know it too. He’d know instantly that it was _his_ Jared.

It’s ridiculous, and Jensen knows it, but this is the way he works. He’s an idealist, a dreamer, and now he’s in love with a concept of a person he found in a diary. Fallen in love with a shoebox.

And even more ridiculous, Jensen doesn’t know if the worse option is Jared miserable or Jared dead.

He slams the driver’s side door and then mutters an apology to his Impala before starting her up and heading out. It’s a long drive to Odessa, and he’s got one night in a hotel while on the road and then a day of unpacking and setting up his new place.

Two miles out of the city he sees a hitchhiker. Big guy, tucked in on himself with a thumb that darts out of the shelter of its hoodie and then tucks back in again like it’s not sure where it’s supposed to be. For half a moment Jensen considers not stopping, but then he thinks of all his shelter animals, and all the people that never stop for them. This is stupid, majorly stupid, but he pulls over on the side of the ride and hits his hazards before leaning over to pop open the passenger door.

The hitchhiker lifts a duffel onto his shoulder and then comes running, legs long and brightly lit in the morning sun, and Jensen gets a good look at the size of him when his body isn’t trying to collapse in on itself. Jensen is a fairly big dude, but this guy has a couple inches on him and is broader in the chest and shoulders. If he’s a psycho, Jensen may very well be fucked.

But when the guy slides in all apprehension leaves, and Jensen feels a smile come to his face unbidden. He holds out a hand and the hitchhiker takes it easily in his larger one and shakes enthusiastically like a puppy with a chew rope. He’s blindingly gorgeous.

“Thanks, thanks so much, seriously man, I’ve been out here for hours so just- just thank you.”

“No problem. I’m Jensen. What’s your name?”

The hitchhiker smiles, bright and easy, but Jensen is good at reading people. It’s a skill he’s picked up over years of dealing with them at their best and worst in the shelter. The smile is forced, even if it seems genuine.

“Jared.”

Everything clicks into place for Jensen, and he feels his grip change on the hand that’s holding it, even as Jared’s smile goes less positive and more hesitant. His mate picks up on the shift in his mood instantly.

_His mate._

Jeff’s words about fate and destiny and mating mock Jensen as he finds that all he can do is stare and hold on to the big hand around his. He doesn’t know what to say. He knows so much about this man, so much more than he should, and he’s not sure if saying he found the diary will make things better or worse.

So, he goes with caution, and tries to cover up the awkwardness of what is now the longest hand shake in history and what is probably a gob smacked look of happiness pasted on his stupid face. He’ll ask something logical. He’ll ask where Jared is headed.

“You’re big for an omega.”

It comes out of his mouth, and instantly he feels his face redden as he releases Jared’s hand and grabs onto the wheel for dear life. He puts the car into drive before Jared can think twice and hits his blinker before rejoining the flow of traffic.

Jensen is too afraid to look over and see what Jared’s expression is, so he keeps his eyes on the road and is surprised at the tone of the response. It’s warm, warmer than the greeting, certainly more real, and infinitely grateful.

“I know. I get that a lot.”

He keeps driving, his eyes locked on the road so that he can’t look over at Jared and fall more in love with whatever look goes with that tone.

“Where are you headed?”

_There you go Jensen. Try being a regular person_.

“Uh. I don’t know yet. I was gonna travel a bit. Maybe end up in California?”

Jensen feels his heart clench, so painfully that he absently rubs at his chest and hears Jared’s concern when his mate speaks again.

“Are you ok? You look pale.”

_No. I’m not ok. I just found my mate and he wants to be far away from me._

But he can’t say that.

“Yeah. Sorry. Little bit of heartburn. I’m not headed to California, but I’m going to Odessa which is a chunk of the state behind you. Is that ok?”

He can hear the smile in Jared’s response.

“That’s great. Seriously. Thank you again, so much, for picking me up.”

“That’s what good alphas do. Take care of omegas.”

Jared makes a sound, pleased, and Jensen’s dick jumps and his brain races a thousand miles a minute. He turns the radio up a little so that it’s pleasant background noise and starts planning out how he can make Jared fall in love with him before they get to Odessa, so that his mate doesn’t try to move on after the car stops.

What makes him good? What would impress Jared?

“Do you like animals?”

Jensen finally dares to look over, and the bright smile on Jared’s face almost stops his pulse. If this is what a mate can do to you, Jensen wonders how Jeff ever left the house.

“I love animals. When I get settled down I plan on getting some rescue mutts.”

“I’m headed to Odessa to take over the director position of the local shelter. I’ve been working in shelters basically my whole life, got a veterinary degree so I could help out more, and this is my first time leading one. I love animals too. Is my point.”

Jared’s smile has not dimmed. He is looking directly at Jensen with an expression that Jensen cannot name or describe, but that he hopes never, _never_ goes away.

“That’s awesome! Does that pay well?”

A snag. If Jared cares about a life of luxury, and Jensen doubts it from what he’s read in the diary, then Jensen’s paychecks versus his bills are not a real bonus. He has to be honest here, he can’t pull off two deceptions at once, but he hopes that it doesn’t hurt his chances.

“No. Not really. But I don’t do it for the money I do it for the animals.”

Jared reaches out, casual, as if he’s done it a thousand times before, and puts a hand on Jensen’s shoulder. It makes his heart triple time in his chest.

“That’s incredible. You’re incredible Jensen.”

He gets the feeling that even if he didn’t know that Jared was his mate, even if he wasn’t aware that he just won the praise of the man he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, this would make him feel just as special and humbled as it does right now. That Jared’s special gift is to make people feel like they’re the light of the world.

And so, Jensen does the dumbest thing he could possibly do. Because in that moment he can’t do anything else.

“I think we’re mates.”

Jared’s eyes go wide, and then he swallows hard and pulls back into the door of the Impala.

“What?”

“I don’t mean that in a weird way. You see, I’ve been in love with you for days.”

“Man, that is weirder. Do you hear how that is weirder?”

Yeah. He does. Now.

“I fell in love with your diary.”

Jared makes a sound, something thick in the back of his throat, and Jensen feels his mate’s panic. He isn’t sure if the better plan is to stop the car and try to soothe him, or to drive faster so that Jared can’t jump out.

“Hear me out. Please. I started it reading it a while back, and I fell in love with you. I knew that we were mates. That there was no one else in the world for me. And now I’ve met you like this, in this kind of fate way like my boss said I would, and I see you, and you’re handsome and amazing and definitely not alpha I don’t know how you could question that, and I want to protect you. I wanna take care of you and treat you right and have you by my side forever as my partner and my mate and my omega. And I don’t make a lot of money, but I got a kickass car, and I take care of animals, and I will get you all the shelter mutts you can stand, and I make an awesome cup of coffee, and I read pretty well in funny voices if you want that, and I sing and play guitar, and I can clean up, and I can-“

Jared’s hand comes up and Jensen’s mouth crashes to the stop it should have reached several minutes ago. His hands are shaking on the wheel as he considers the many ways that this could end.

None of them seem good.

“You read my diary and you think we’re mates?”

Jensen feels five inches tall and made of straight shit. He can feel his shoulders pulling in on themselves, much like Jared’s were out on the side of the road.

“I know. And I get that it’s creepy, and a violation of privacy, but I… I can’t help it. And seeing you now, in real life, I just want to be able to keep you.”

Jared reaches out, hesitates, and then puts a hand on his.

“Can you pull over?”

He does, but it’s with the heaviest heart he’s ever had. When he gets to the side of the road, not very far from where he picked Jared up in the first place, he thinks that is the end of their story. He will spend the rest of his days longing for what he would have had if he was a just a little bit better.

Instead of getting out Jared takes both of his clenched hands off the wheel and tugs until Jensen turns to look at him. That expression is back, the one that makes Jensen feel like he can take on the whole world. He wonders how much that look costs Jared when he’s at his lowest.

“You read my diary, and you wanna be my mate? Are you sure? You know what you’re in for. I’m not really-“

“You are. You are really. And we both know it. I can tell you now, even before you’ve started transitioning, that you are definitely omega. And if you’ll have me you’re my omega. And if you won’t I’ll spend the rest of my life hoping that my omega is happy somewhere and living as himself.”

Jared’s lower lip trembles, and a thick strand of hair falls in eyes that are tearing up. Jensen wants to move it, and dry them, but it means letting his mate go.

“Jensen. I want that. Very much.”

His mate only laughs at his victory screech.

**Four Months Later**

Jared is deep into his hormone therapy. They’ve adopted four mutts from the shelter, and the only real fight of their relationship has been whether or not their little house can take a fifth.

It’s been interesting, getting to know each other for real, but Jensen has cherished every single second of it. Now he’s buried deep inside Jared, rubbing his mate’s belly as his knot pulses inside of him. Jared is trembling, sweaty and big but wrapped up in Jensen’s embrace and stuck on his knot.

Jensen rumbles in his mate’s ear, listens to Jared’s little happy noise, and can’t help but smile.

“It seems like you’re leveling out sweetheart.”

Jared nods, sleepily, and leans his head back so Jensen has access to his neck to nip the mating mark there. Jared is always sleepy after a good knotting.

“So, I was thinking it’s time you applied. The local high school is looking for an English teacher, and I know a guy that would make an excellent fit.”

His mate tenses a little, but Jensen knows what his omega needs in this moment. He’s learned it over the last months, as sure as he’s learned that Jared is a Hoover vacuum for food, or that he likes foot rubs but only if he can’t see his own feet.

“You’re gonna apply. As Jared, my omega. The whole town knows you that way anyway. And we need the second income for the next step of the plan.”

Jared turns his head at that, one eyebrow quirking up.

“Getting a bigger house for a fifth dog?”

“Getting a bigger house to adopt a baby.”

Jared clenches down on Jensen’s knot, and he feels himself swell a little more even as he groans and pushes forward instinctively.

“I love you. Jen, I love, love, love you.”

“I love you too, Jay.”

They stay that way for the next hour, nested in their little bed with Jensen occasionally rocking his hips to draw out the length of the knotting and enjoy the closeness only he can have with his omega.

**Robert Frost- "Reluctance"**

Out through the fields and the woods  
And over the walls I have wended  
I have climbed the hills of view  
And looked at the world, and descended  
I have come by the highway home  
And lo, it is ended

The leaves are all dead on the ground  
Save those that the oak is keeping  
To ravel them one by one  
And let them go scraping and creeping  
Out over the crusted snow  
When others are sleeping

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still  
No longer blown hither and thither  
The last lone aster is gone  
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither  
The heart is still aching to seek  
But the feet question "Whither"

Ah, when to the heart of man  
Was it ever less than a treason  
To go with the drift of things  
To yield with a grace to reason  
And bow and accept the end  
Of a love or a season?


End file.
